Will History be Kind to Bush on Iran? [LINK]

Prepare yourself for the unsettling possibility that history may be kind to the Bush administration's efforts to forment democracy in Iran. As one data point, note this three-year-old editorial from the Irish Independent. It appeared during a period of intense speculation that the Bush Administration was preparing a military strike against Iran:

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, told Congress that "we may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran". Drawing inspiration from the Cold War, America is putting in place a strategy to undermine the Iranian regime from within, not least by pumping money into radio and television broadcasts aimed at Iran—particularly young Iranians deemed to be hostile to the regime and friendly to the West....

The trouble is that there is no guarantee of when this policy will succeed, if ever.

Here's a similar Los Angeles Times op-ed from the same period by a pair of analysts from the Council on Foreign Relations. Its title, "The wrong way to fix Iran," may well prove ill-chosen.

The Bush administration quietly orchestrated a major shift in U.S. policy toward Iran this month, requesting $85 million from Congress to help bring about regime change in Tehran. Washington is now seeking not just to contain Tehran's nuclear ambitions but also to topple the Iranian government.

The war in Iraq has made all too clear the high cost of using military force to attain regime change. Accordingly, the administration is taking a page from Eastern Europe, where the United States used radio broadcasts and direct assistance to opposition groups to help undermine authoritarian governments and promote democracy. Administration officials explicitly cited Poland's Solidarity movement as a model.

Although democratizing Iran is a worthy objective, the administration is making a mistake in embracing a strategy for regime change based on the European experience. Conditions in Iran bear little resemblance to those that accompanied the downfall of dictatorial regimes in Europe....

Here's a similar one from The Guardian called "Drumbeat sounds familiar," which notes the Bush administration's effort to bolster democratic agitation on the part of Iran's ethnic minorites:

[Iranian officials] cite a US decision to spend $75m on funding potential Iranian opposition forces, including NGOs, trade unions and human rights groups, and local language propaganda broadcasts—tactics pioneered in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Iran accuses the US of stirring discontent among its Kurdish, Baluch and Azeri minorities, suspicions fed by a US marine corps investigation to gauge the strength of opposition to the central government among non-Persian groups....

Certainly, there's little way yet to gauge the degree to which today's democratic agitation may have been influenced by Bush administration policy, but it's worth a try.

Objecting to Race vs. Race Consciousness [LINK]

My latest letter to the Globe. The report in question is a reprint of a Los Angeles Times piece that features a casual smear of Senator Cornyn. As blogger Patterico points out, the Times subsequently removed the offensive text without noting the error.

According to a report on the Supreme Court confirmation process, Texas Sen. John Cornyn "pledged that he and other Republican lawmakers would probe deeply into Sotomayor's past comments and rulings to see whether her heritage colors her ability to make fair decisions." This characterization represents a smear. Cornyn did not say "her heritage" might affect her ability to make fair rulings. Indeed, in the same interview with ABC News, he said the opposite: that it "shouldn't make any difference what your ethnicity is." What Cornyn did call attention to was Sotomayor's own racially-charged suggestion that her status as a "wise Latina woman" would allow her to make better decisions than a white male. Cornyn did not question Sotomayor's race, but rather her race-consciousness. Perhaps sensitive to this important distinction, the Los Angeles Times, from which the Globe procured the report, unceremoniously removed those words from its online version of the text. Perhaps the Globe could, alternately, do the decent thing and offer a correction.

Boston Globe suggests, approvingly, that Obama's Iran policy inhabits parallel universe [LINK]

Peter Canellos in the Boston Globe, May 26, 2009:

In the climactic action sequence of "Star Trek," the year's most popular movie, the new, younger Captain Kirk does something novel for a big summer action flick: He offers leniency to an enemy.

Turning to a puzzled Mr. Spock, Kirk explains that showing leniency toward the rival Romulans could promote trust and increase the chances of reconciliation, for the betterment of the galaxy.

"It's logical," he declares.

But before the data-driven Spock can process this unique piece of information, the Romulan leader, Captain Nero, seems to remember that he's in an American action movie and is expected to act accordingly. He snarls that he would rather be blown to shreds than accept a nickel of kindness from Kirk, who promptly obliges him.

It's hard to know what the filmmakers intend to convey through this age-of-Obama moment....

Here's the crux. Not to spoil the plot, but it appears moral equivalence is so strongly ingrained that it is habitually extended even to disputes between fictional groups such as the Romulans and the Federation:

In the movie's conception of good and evil, both Nero and Spock are acting appropriately in avenging perceived wrongs, and the proof of Nero's evil and Spock's virtue is mainly in the fact that Spock prevails: God, science, nature, and the special-effects team at Paramount all combine to create a universe in which force and justice go hand in hand.

No wonder Nero rejected Kirk's overtures. Cooperation, in this universe, is indistinguishable from submission. Peace is inherently dishonorable.

Two, Two, Two Enthusiasms in One [LINK]

In honor of Earth Day, a series of "Eco-Sex" recommendations from Marie Claire, April 2009:

• Love Yourself, Love Your Planet. Take landfill-clogging batteries out of the equation with Sola, a small bullet-shaped vibrator powered by the sun. ($69.95; shop.libida.com)

• Conflict-Free Rubbers. When you buy your condoms from the French Letter Condom Company, a chunk of the proceeds go towards ensuring that the rubber-plantation workers receive fair wages. (approximately $13, ethicalsuperstore.com)

• S&M with a Conscience. Earth Erotics’ Standard Recycled Rubber Whip is a handcrafted spanker made from recycled car and truck tire parts. ($40; eartherotics.com)

• Give Some, Get Some. Trade in your broken Rabbit and wornout handcuffs for a $10 coupon and free shipping on your next sex toy through the mail-in Sex Toy Recycling Program (recyclemysextoy.com). Sorry, curbside pickup not available.

(via the American Spectator)

I read it on Andrew Sullivan's blog [LINK]

"You're all wrong. It turns out it was Michael Palin who's the real mother."

—Winston Churchill

The Globe's Non Sequitur [LINK]

My own apparent motivation is to have a letter printed in the last issue of the Boston Globe telling them what imbeciles they are:

A Globe editorial discussing delays in the cabinet approval process features a pair of sentences that, taken together, defy reason. "Yet some interest groups - and senators - seem less interested in considering the merits of a nominee than in scoring political points. The lone vote on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against Hillary Clinton as secretary of state came from Louisiana's David Vitter, whose reputation as a family-values conservative was damaged in a prostitution scandal."

The Globe appears to be suggesting that any vote against confirming Clinton could not have been due to her merits as a nominee. The Globe also appears to believe that Vitter's status as a hypocrite on "family-values" issues informs his vote against confirmation, but fails to explain how. For the record, Vitter's stated reason for opposing confirmation was potential conflicts of interest stemming from numerous donations to the Clinton Presidential Library from foreign governments.

It's amusing to read one sentence decrying the impulse to score cheap political points followed by another that demonstrates exactly that.

Report Ignores Revealed Preference [LINK]

A letter in response to a report on my local NPR station:

Tonight WBUR aired an engaging report by Rachel Gotbaum on palliative care, one that focused on the diminishing returns end-of-life medical interventions often bring, especially as medical advances extend lives further and make people more likely to die of long-drawn-out chronic diseases.

I found one aspect of the report questionable, however: its conclusion that patients are ill-served by the medical establishment's focus on doing everything in their power to keep their older patients alive. Instead, the report cited a "national survey" that people would prefer to die at home, surrounded by family, and with no pain -- a preference we're clearly not meeting because 80% of us die in institutions.

The problem with such survey data is that it's far less reliable than data on how people actually behave. Of course, when asked, people will naturally respond that they don't want to die in pain, but that's not necessarily a realistic option if your goal is to live longer. Those who value a pain-free death so highly would commit suicide well before their chronic conditions caused such discomfort. A proper survey should mirror such real-life constraints, e.g., by asking: "which would you rather do, die peacefully at 80, or more painfully at 85, but at least be able to see your grandchildren grow a few more years?"

By ignoring the manifest preference expressed by the behavior of health care consumers, the report instead focuses exclusively on the role of health care providers. It refers to a "health care system determined to keep everyone alive," as if patients have no choice in that determination. The report hints that increased rationing of health care is the appropriate response, which only seems natural given its narrow focus on cost-efficiency.

It's certainly appropriate to consider alternate systems that deliver a lower level of health care, especially when the costs of such expensive end-of-life care are not internalized. However, the suggestion that we'd prefer not to avail ourselves of such care is a dubious one.

This argument based on "revealed preference" reminded me of a similar one I posed concerning the death penalty.

---

UPDATE: Sure enough, the following day's report told the heart-wrenching story of a man who wanted to die from a chronic condition at home, but who after collapsing there was taken to an emergency room, where he was force-fed with a feeding tube, and tied down to prevent him from yanking it out of his mouth, until finally he died. This truly horrifying story was taken to mean health care providers should not go to great efforts to keep patients alive. But this seems a simple issue of communicating the patient's wishes. Assuming the patient is competent, the decision is his.

Is Craigslist Responsible? [LINK]

Another letter to the Globe:

Editorializing on the murder of Julissa Brisman, the Globe concludes that unless Web firms such as Craigslist "take more responsibility for how their sites are used," Americans may "need to get used to a lot more risk in the spaces where they gather." This is both vague and incorrect in this instance. Craigslist does nothing to increase the risk a young woman offering herself as a prostitute already faces when going into a hotel room with a total stranger. There is no risk whatsoever of bodily harm to other Americans. If the phrase "spaces where they gather" encompasses online virtual spaces, the only risk is seeing such a classified posting, akin to seeing a print ad for "escort services."

Is it worth pointing out that web sites like Criagslist are the primary reason the Boston Globe is failing as a business?

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UPDATE: It made it, along with two editorial changes.

First, they changed "prostitute" to "provider of erotic services," leading to a far more awkward sentence. The original editorial features the word "prostitution", even if not calling any one person a "prostitute." While the change could be a routine PC filter, it's possible the Globe was trying to be sensitive to the possibility that Brisman may not have been engaging in prostitution, in the strict legal sense of a direct exchange of sex for money.

Second, they removed the phrase in this instance, which significantly alters my meaning. That is, I consider it a truism that when compared with other crimes aided by traditional communication technologies, the Web increases the overall risk of such violent encounters due to increased opportunities for interaction.

Is Globe Dying Because of its Bias? [LINK]

Hurry! There may not be many more letters like these to the Globe left!

I disagree with various letter writers pointing to liberal bias as the main source of the Globe's financial problems. Newspapers are in trouble across the board, primarily due to migration of readers and advertising revenue towards the Internet. If liberal bias were costing the Globe widespread circulation, the Herald would be expected to benefit from the error, but instead we find that paper is also struggling to stay afloat.

That said, the Globe clearly does display a leftward bias, and you wouldn't need to look further for an example than today's article by Peter Canellos titled: "In a stroke of brilliance, Obama defies easy caricature." [National Perpective, 4/7/09] It is the sort of highly opinionated, insubstantial "analysis" that would ordinarily belong in a paper's editorial pages, if even there. Asserting that President Obama "floats above the fray," Canellos fails to reference any "stroke of brilliance" that would immunize him from routine criticism other than his "calm, serious manner" and "air of persistence."

While reinforcing a hazily favorable opinion, Canellos shies away from any substantial criticism. In particular, the president's comments -- "We haven't immediately eliminated the influence of lobbyists in Washington. We have not immediately eliminated wasteful pork projects" -- are transparently laughable considering the stimuluating effect the coursing of trillions of additional dollars through Washington has had on lobbyists. Any self-respecting journalist should lunge at the opportunity to highlight such an absurdity. Canellos's point that criticism doesn't stick to this president is made far easier by ignoring such criticism rather than evaluating its merits.

If the Globe is to survive in an on-line world, it will be based on the credibility of its primary reporting operation now that opinions are so easy to generate. To that extent, the Globe's bias matters.

We'll be eating very safe junk food [LINK]

A letter I sent to my Rep:

I urge you to oppose HR 875, or any similar legislation that imposes additional regulatory burdens on local food providers. The level of food safety in the USA is unmatched, and there is little reason to believe this legislation will improve the quality of our diet. Instead, it will lead to increased centralization overall. The job of regulation will migrate away from states and towards the federal government, whose responsiveness to the lobbying of agricultural giants is well known. Smaller independent food providers will have more difficulty absorbing the resulting regulatory costs than these large conglomerates. Farm stands (such as Verrill's & Mrs. Marabello's) will have to maintain an on-site "Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point" plan, or else be fined up to $1 million. The law's requirements will be especially devastating to purveyors of locally grown, organic, and artisinal food products. In particular, anything that raises the cost of locally grown produce relative to supermarket food will, on balance, decrease the quality of our diet. We'll be eating very safe junk food.

Google Rolls out "Orwellian" Service [LINK]

Back in 1984, I recall Orwell's book often discussed as a prophesy of our own times. The evidence for such a comparison? Supermarket check-out scanners. Cameras that snapped your picture when you sped through a toll booth.

Peter Funt should look up the word "eavesdrop" in the dictionary. He uses that word, along with other scare words such as "Orwellian" and "snooping," to describe Google's latest "Latitude" location-tracking service. This, in the same paragraph in which he notes it's for "consenting users" who opt in so that they can keep in touch with their friends. By definition, if you opt in, what happens is not "eavesdropping."

After seeing his house pictured on the web using Google's Street Views, which incorporates street-level photos into its mapping service, Funt also worries that burglars might see the "open window on the second floor" and find it inviting. What he fails to mention is that the picture was likely snapped months ago, and that in the meantime he may have had the good sense to close his window.

If Funt insists on using the word "Orwellian," the least he can do is supply credible scenarios in which the technology leads to a totalitarian government. Instead, he asks rhetorically, what if he paid a team to scan innumerable Street View images for "driveways in need of repair, then sold the list to a paving company?" I'll tell you what: at worst, you get a piece of mail from a paving company, which you then throw in the trash.

Funt compares Google's service to existing manifestations of "Big Brother," such as convenience-store security cameras, seemingly oblivious to the actual reason those cameras are there. For one thing, if someone happens to steal Mr. Funt's credit card and pass it at one of those stores, police will use the video to catch the criminal and thus protect Mr. Funt's privacy.

There's an appropriate response to this ongoing hysterical tendency to ascribe malevolence to so many unfamiliar technologies: LOL.

---

It made it.

Little Criticism of $160 Price Tag for Obama Inauguration [LINK]

Upon learning the upcoming Obama Inauguration will cost approximately $160 million, roughly quadrupling the overall cost of Bush's 2005 Inauguration, it's a useful exercise to revisit some of the commentary criticizing that previous event.

Here's James Dao in the New York Times, January 23, 2005, in an article provocatively titled "Don't They Know There's a War On"?

Enjoy the party!" a protestor shouted in cheerful greeting to Republicans arriving at a pre-inaugural party here. "People are dying in Iraq. Enjoy the champagne!"

To many Democrats, images of Republicans in sequined gowns and designer tuxedos nibbling roast quail and twirling the Texas two-step in last week's $40 million-plus inaugural extravaganza seemed inappropriate, unseemly, even unpatriotic, when American soldiers are dying in Iraq.

"Precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be muted — if not cancelled — in wartime," Representative Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, chided in a letter to President Bush. Citing Franklin D. Roosevelt's austere fourth inaugural in 1945, Mr. Weiner suggested that the money would have been better spent on armored Humvees and pay bonuses for the troops.

In a nationwide Gallup Poll released last week, 54 percent of respondents said the inauguration should have been toned down because the country was at war....

Note that the only sign of Gallup asking people about Obama’s inauguration centers around whether it’ll be the most significant inaugural in American history, or simply one of the most significant.

Anne E. Kornblut in the New York Times, January 15, 2005:

With less than a week to go until her husband's second inauguration, Laura Bush on Friday defended the decision to hold the $40 million celebration as planned despite a war abroad and the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.

Inaugurations, Mrs. Bush said, are "an important part of our history."

"They're a ceremony of our history; they're a ritual of our government," she said in a round-table interview with reporters in the White House map room. "And I think it's really important to have the inauguration every time. I think it's also good for Washington's economy, for people to come in from around the country, for the hotels to be full, and the restaurants to be full, and the caterers to be busy. I think that's important."

The BBC News, January 20, 2005:

With an estimated price tag of $40m, the three-day celebration that is President Bush’s second inauguration will be the most expensive ever….

Some have criticised the expense, questioning the propriety of a flashy celebration as US troops are dying in Iraq and South Asia still recovers from last month’s deadly tsunami.

The overt criticism of an inauguration is unusual, but a Washington Post poll found that a majority of Americans would prefer a smaller, more subdued event.

The Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2005:

The coronation — excuse me, inauguration — of George Bush reminded me of the “let them eat cake” days of the French monarchy. Forget mounting casualties in Iraq, tsunami victims and thousands facing starvation in Africa, let’s party! After all, it cost only $40 million; that’s less that a buck apiece for American families living below the poverty line or without health insurance.

While I suppose some sort of ceremony is in order for the beginning of Bush’s second term, it seems unconscionable that such a celebratory mood exists in Washington today. Young kids in their 20s continue to die daily in Iraq, tsunami victims try to reassemble their lives, heavy storm victims in California do the same and dysfunction throughout the world seems at an all-time extreme.

Here's another reference to "let them eat cake," this one from an open letter to President Bush from CBS’s Lloyd Garver, January 12, 2005:

Like millions of Americans, I was moved by your appeal to open my heart and wallet at this time and think about the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Now I’m appealing to you to hold a more modest inauguration celebration so that money can be used for a more appropriate cause.

Currently, the celebration is estimated at a cost of between $40 and $50 million. It’s scheduled to go on for four days, and will include nine official balls, countless “unofficial parties,” and a parade. I know the dollar isn’t worth what it once was, and the price of those little hot dogs keeps going up, but a four-day, $50-million party? Considering what’s going on in the world, these plans make Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake” attitude seem like the height of sensitivity….

And that’s all I’m asking. I’m not suggesting that you cancel it. Celebrate. Have a party. Have a big party. Get all dressed up and dance at the elegant ball. Have some ribs at the Texas Black Tie and Boots Ball. But don’t have a four-day “coronation” that says to the world, “champagne and caviar are more important to us than human lives.” Cut back on the party and ask those guys to give their big money to something that’s really important — just as you asked all Americans.

Charity balls instead of self-indulgent balls seem like a pretty good idea at this time. Think of what could be done with that $50 million if you convinced those sponsors to spend their money on more meaningful things than paté and limos. How many parentless victims of the tsunami could be saved with that money? How much body armor could be provided for our soldiers with that money? How many soldiers’ families who are having a tough time financially could be helped?

Here's the USA Today, January 14, 2005:

President Bush’s second inauguration will cost tens of millions of dollars — $40 million alone in private donations for the balls, parade and other invitation-only parties. With that kind of money, what could you buy?

• Two hundred Humvees with the best armor for troops in Iraq.
• Vaccinations and preventive health care for 22 million children in regions devastated by the tsunami.
• A down payment on the nation’s deficit, which hit a record-breaking $412 billion last year….

But a recent confluence of events —the tsunami natural disaster, Bush’s warning about Social Security finances and the $5 billion-a-month price tag for the war in Iraq — have many Americans now wondering why spend the money the second time around….

Billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks, voted for Bush — twice. Cuban knows a thing or two about big spending, once starring in ABC’s reality TV show, “The Benefactor,” in which 16 contenders tried to pass his test for success and win $1 million.

Cuban questioned spending all that money on the inaugural.

“As a country, we face huge deficits. We face a declining economy. We have service people dying. We face responsibilities to help those suffering from the … devastation of the tsunamis,” he wrote on his blog, a Web journal.

Here, by the way, is what Mr. Cuban has to say about the 2009 inaugural on his blog, a Web Journal, thoughts he posted in the wake of the terrorist attack on Mumbai:

Four years ago I suggested that the Bush administration cancel the inauguration parties and instead ask corporations to donate that money to the victims of the Tsunami.

Its fair to ask where I stand on the coming inauguration and whether parties should be canceled and money sent to the victims of the tragedy in India.

When the tsunami hit, it was a devastaion of epic proportions. Raising money for the survivors and rebuilding was a responsibility we as a nation accepted. We had telethons, events and fund raisers to try to help. The unfortunate situation in India, at least as it stands today, is not one that can be helped by contributions to the survivors. Thoughts and prayers, yes. Potentially support for anti terrorism programs, yes. But re-routing funds from anything to India, as least as far as I am aware, won’t help survivors or hostages at this time.

Point taken. Still, for an analogous well of bottomless need, may I suggest offering relief to mortgage holders facing foreclosure?

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UPDATE: Some of my comments in response to the idea that the first quote was out of context, plus some musings on grammar.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 [LINK]

A useful bit of information:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Nonsense about Hurricanes [LINK]

A note I just sent to FightGlobalWarming.com:

Your "tick" ad is nothing short of shameful, and to enlist children in dissemination of such propaganda is even worse. There is zero empirical evidence, and only the most speculative theoretical underpinning, for the notion that global warming -- from whatever cause -- might lead to increased severity or frequency of hurricanes. Read the latest IPCC report. If anything, warming should lead to decreased temperature differentials between tropical and polar regions, and thus less severe weather patterns overall.

My sincere belief is this: one day our ancestors will look back and consider our response to global warming. They will conclude that, based on the information available at the time, there were definitely some plausible elements of concern. Still, they will assign the word "hysteria" to this period in all their textbooks. They will look back at us the same way we look back at the McCarthy era.

...to which I'll add that college freshmen will roll their eyes at the thought of having to explain the various ways we displayed our ignorance.

No Fundraising for Exclusive Diseases [LINK]

The Canadian National Post, November 25, 2008:

The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

(via Critical Mass)